Yardmaster Kickstarter Preview

Today's post is not a review, but a preview for a game currently funding on Kickstarter.

If you haven't already heard, Yardmaster is the latest game publisher Crash Games is putting out through Kickstarter. It is coming to the end of a very successful Kickstarter campaign, having raised almost 200% of the original funding goal. Should you rush out and pledge your support before the campaign ends?

Yardmaster is a simple card game of hand management and set collection. Players will be competing to assemble a train of loaded rail cards that equal a predetermined point total (16 in a 4 player game) before the other players can. There are two basic types of cards in the game, cargo cards and rail cards. Players' hands will be made up of cargo cards - these are the currency of the game. Railcar cards are the points in the game, and will be laid out in front of players.

On a turn, players get to perform 2 actions from among 3 choices:

• Draw a cargo card from the top of the discard pile, or from the top of the deck
• Buy a railcar by discarding 1-4 cargo cards that are the same color as the card
• Swap your exchange token with another player's or with one in the middle

This player could purchase and add either the green 4 card or the blue 1 card, but not the yellow 2.

The cost of each railcar card is indicated on the card - and that number is also the number of points the railcar is worth if connected to a player's train. In order to join a railcar to a train, the card must match either the color or the number of the card preceding it.

This player can purchase the red 2 card, by using her blue exchange rate token to use her two blue cards as a second red card.

Each player starts with an exchange rate token, she can discard two matching cargo cards that correspond to her token to represent any of the other three types of cargo.

Yardmaster is one of those games that can fill many spots in a game collection. If you find yourself with a bunch of people who aren't as into board games as you are, you can pull out Yardmaster to show them something easy to set up, teach, and play. This group might have some trouble with the idea of "actions" and "exchange rates" but those are probably the two biggest hurdles for these players to get over.

You could also pull out Yardmaster with a more seasoned group of players as a pretty interesting 15-20 minute "filler" game to play when a longer game just won't work. Instruction with this group will likely take about 60 seconds, and while the it's simple, gameplay is still quite interesting.

If you think Yardmaster would fit nicely into your collection, hurry up and pledge your support now!! Today is the FINAL day to pledge for this Kickstarter campaign!!

Jim would like to thank Rhiannon of Spooning Meeples for being generous enough to forward her review copy of the game to him. Go check out her excellent YouTube channel!!

Manifest Kickstarter Preview

[This post is not a review, but a preview of a game that is currently on Kickstarter. The final version of the game may be different in terms of art, graphics, or rules.]

Set in the Roaring 20s, Manifest is a game of shipping goods, transporting passengers, and avoiding pirates. It is a family style hand management and pick-up and deliver game that is easy to learn and takes between 45 and 90 minutes to play (2-5 players).

The game ships with two sets of game rules: Basic and Expert. Both rule sets are basically the same, with the Expert game adding deck building mechanisms to play. I will explain how the Basic game works first, and will later illustrate what the Expert game changes.

Before beginning a game of Manifest, players choose how long of a game they wish to play. The instructions suggest that with 4 players playing until a player has 11 points, for a 45-60 minute game, or to 15 points for a 60-90 minute game. 

In Manifest, players control shipping companies, and have two cargo ships each. Each ship is able to hold four items, either goods or passengers. Players will be moving these ships from port to port, picking up goods and passengers and then transporting those items to the ports that want them, as indicated by Contract Cards.

There are 3 Contract Cards that are available for completion by any player. These are face up on the board. The Contract Cards are laid out very nicely, with a large picture of what good/passenger is wanted at the destination port, and dots on the map showing which port(s) the good/passenger can be picked up at, and where the destination port is located. When a player completes a contract, she takes the contract card and places it under her player mat, leaving the number of points it is worth showing. 

A player who is able to complete these two contracts 

would score 5 points - 5 for Petrograd and 1 for New York.

Play of the game is driven by an action card deck. At the beginning of each turn, a player will have 4 Action Cards in her hand. She can play as many of these as she wants on her turn. Each action card can be used for one of three things: movement, money, or the special card ability. Using a card's movement value allows a player to move one of her ships through spaces that are equal to or less than the value on the card. Money on a card can be used to pay to pick up goods or passengers in port, dump cargo or passengers that a player no longer wishes to haul, or purchase a face down contract from the contract deck. Contracts purchased this way are then personal contracts that can only be completed by the player holding them. 

The "World Crisis" card  ability affects everyone playing, and simulates the events of October 29, 1929 - Black Tuesday.

The final thing an Action Card can be used for is the card's special ability. This is the part of the game that really brings in the theme and makes the game stand out. The events range from being able to double the movement of a ship to being able to attack an opponent's ship. The art on the prototype cards that I received is very well done, with the ability text written in a 1920s style newspaper headline style. The titles of the cards are thematic as well, invoking language and events from the time, with titles like Double Whammy" and "Spanish Flu."

The final part of the Basic game are the piracy spaces and attacks. Some regions on the board (indicated by red pathways) are patrolled by thieving pirates. Any ships entering these paths need to roll two dice are pirate attacks! Resolving these attacks is simple: if the player has any cargo in the matching holds of the ship being attacked, they are lost. Some Action Cards have special ability text that allow a player to attack another - these attacks are resolved in the same way, except some of these cards allow the attacking player to steal any cargo lost! 

The Expert game plays similarly to the Basic game, except instead of drawing Action Cards from a shared deck, players will be drawing Action Cards from their own decks. Money also has an additional function in the game, in that it can be used to draft new cards into player's decks. There will be a row of 3 cards available for purchase, all of which cost $3 each to put into a player's discard pile. These cards will then eventually be shuffled into and drawn from a player's deck. 

Manifest is a solid pick-up and deliver game with some fun "take that" chaos added in. As I said above, the special abilities on the cards really add a lot of flair to what is otherwise a pretty basic (though still entertaining) family game. I think that Manifest is one of those games that could be played on the same game night as Carcasonne and Ticket to Ride with a group of gateway gamers. It is simple to learn and play, but has a good amount of planning and strategy - as well as a couple laugh out loud moments each game.

SchilMil Games is currently seeking contributions on Kickstarter to fund a print run of Manifest!! They are well on their way to being funded having already raised over a third of what they need!! If you're interested in pledging for a copy, head on over to Kickstarter to show them your support!

[Jim would like to thank SchilMil Games for having a prototype copy of Manifest sent to him.]

Rialto Review

When I learned that Stefan Feld and Tasty Minstrel Games teamed up, I figured that I really should try whatever they came up with.  And thus, I got the privilege of trying out Rialto.

In Rialto, players vie for power in Italy - you know, by building bridges and placing councilmen and such.  (Just like I do in my daily life…)  The game is played over six rounds, and each round has three phases (and each phase has certain buildings that correspond to it).  The first phase consists of collecting a set of six face up cards and two random cards (of which you can only keep seven).  The second phase has the players play these cards at various times for different effects - gaining money and victory points, building bridges and gondolas, and placing councilmen.  The final phase simply consists of activating a certain type of building.  After the six rounds, players add up points based on how much control they have over each district (and how much those districts are worth) as well as which buildings they control.  Whoever has the most points is declared the dictator for life over Italy!  (Or the winner of the game - whichever title you think you are more likely to be able to retain.)

The first pro that I have for Rialto is that you must spend a coin to activate any of your buildings.  This rule, honestly, was something that seemed very trivial (even nuisance-y) as I was reading through the rules.  However, as I've played the game, I have grown in my appreciation for this.  And, to give you a better understanding, this is the only use for gold coins.  If you don't have buildings, then you don't ever have to worry about collecting gold!  And yet, buildings can be incredibly useful.  They can allow you to draw and keep more cards in the first phase.  They can also allow you to change what kind of cards you have in the second phase.  And they can give you direct victory points in the third phase!  So, I like the fact that you must spend a gold whenever you want to use a building, because it helps the game retain a bit more balance.  (And keeps it from being all about who can build the better buildings first.)

Player board for the builder in your group

The next pro that I have for Rialto is that you are encouraged to perform all of the actions during the game, and yet you are rewarded for specializing in certain ones.  You are encouraged to perform all the actions, because they are all good - they move you up on the Doge track (turn order and tie breakers), give you gold (to activate buildings), build buildings, gain victory points, unlock councilmen, and place councilmen.  If you neglect any of those, then you might have some serious problems.  Some of them (such as placing councilmen and gaining victory points) need to be performed every turn to have the maximum effect.  And yet, whoever plays the most cards of each type gets a bonus - with the effect often being the same as playing an extra card.  So, if you're able to get two bonuses, then it is similar to getting to play nine cards instead of seven!  But, in order to get those bonuses, you will inevitably be neglecting other areas of the game.  This tension really gives players some interesting choices.

The final pro that I will mention for Rialto is that I enjoy the scoring mechanism.  Each district is worth a number of points based on what bridges and gondolas connect to it.  (Both bridges and gondolas are placed as a bonus for playing the most cards of certain types during the second phase, and thus their locations are determined by players.)  Whoever has the most councilmen in the region gets the full number of victory points.  Second place gets half as many (rounded down), third place gets half of what second earned, and so on.  This means that it can be as valuable to be second (or even third) place in a district as it is to be first place in another.  And so, players are encouraged to win districts, but also to be careful about which districts they win - and are also encouraged to win the bonus that allows them to place bridges, to add more value to the districts that they are already winning!

Initial card selections

Now, though there are a lot of great features in Rialto, there are a couple of cons that I'd like to mention.  First, I felt like there was too much emphasis on placing councilmen in the first (and to a lesser degree second) round.  The reason for this is that after these councilmen have been placed, at least one player has a district that they are winning.  (It is actually possible that it could be tied, and you also can lose control over a district that you are winning, but it is rare.  Another player would have to get the bonus allowing them to place a gondola, and then they are allowed to place a councilman adjacent to the newly placed gondola - such as in the district that you were controlling.)  And so, after the initial round or two, placing bridges is performed in one of two ways - if the person controls a region, then they will place the bridge on their own region; otherwise they will place it far away on a region that nobody controls yet (which isn't terribly strategic - it's just a stalling tactic).  Now, the counter argument for this is that controlling a region initially is the reward for going after councilmen early in the game instead of performing an action like building buildings, but I still find it a bit annoying.

The other cons that I have are very minor, and don't really warrant much elaboration.  First, there is a lot of re-shuffling the deck in the game - especially in larger games.  (The deck is 77 cards, and in a 5 player game, 36 cards are out to start the round, 10 more will be drawn, and buildings can cause another 45 more (though realistically probably closer to 21) to be drawn.  So, the discards will have to be collected and re-shuffled almost every round.)  Second, there is quite a bit of emphasis on card counting in the game, which I'd just as soon not have to bother with - yet to not count them leaves you at a strategic disadvantage.  (If you remember what your opponents selected then you can have a good idea of what they are going to play.  And knowing what they can play helps you determine whether you can win bonuses.)

Overall, I enjoyed Rialto, and would give it an 8.5/10.  It is a game that I could continue playing, and I appreciate that it is relatively quick to play while offering some fairly deep strategic elements.

If Rialto sounds interesting, you might also check out Notre Dame, Terra Mystica, and Belfort.

I would like to thank Tasty Minstrel Games for providing me with a review copy of Rialto.